Salzburg: Everyone Loves a Flohmarkt!

Most major European tourist destinations want so badly for you to shop at their luxury stores that they even publish little ritzy “how-to” pamphlets, as though you need help figuring out how to use your credit card.

But all good Cheapos know that it’s the fleamarkets, not Louis Vuitton, that deserve our hard-earned euros. Not only are fleamarkets cheap, they’re a great way to connect with a city. Which material possessions inhabitants choose to own (and give away) is also quite revealing.

In an effort to supplement our touristy experience of Salzburg, we made the journey to a flea market—or Flohmarkt, in German—in Kleingmeinerhof, a suburb southeast of the city center. It took some planning to get out there. The signs advertising the flea market weren’t in English and we weren’t exactly sure where we were going.

But Mensch, was it worth it! The small wooden pavilion housing the Flohmarkt was packed with so much bric-a-brac that not even your devoted fleamarket-crazed editor had the energy to pick through everything. Genuine Lederhosen! Austrian Kinder board games! An ominous photo of grinning woman and baHeino: is it you?!—and home-baked cream cakes rounded out the experience.

About the author

Native New Yorker Miranda fondly recalls family trips to Europe, which featured formative events like spending a night on the roof of an overbooked Greek hotel and sampling the culinary wonders of horse meat. But it was while riding a pony through a patch of wild blueberries in Iceland that she realized she wanted to be an explorer. As an undergrad, Miranda bicycled across the US and lived for several months in Berlin. Nowadays she obsesses over Baltic countries and the plump cream-smothered dumplings to be found there. Fluent in German, she does freelance translation and writes educational material for children.